RPM and file extended attributes

[Mangalampalli, JayantX]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: rpm-list-bounces at lists.rpm.org [mailto:rpm-list-
>bounces at lists.rpm.org] On Behalf Of Chad Sellers
>Sent: Thursday, October 22, 2009 1:16 PM
>To: General discussion about the RPM package manager
>Subject: Re: RPM and file extended attributes
>
>On 10/22/09 2:31 PM, "Mangalampalli, JayantX"
><jayantx.mangalampalli at intel.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Is it possible to preserve file¹s extended attributes in RPM packages? I
>have
>> some files that I want packaged and they have some EAs (like
>security.selinux
>> etc) that I wish to preserve when installing them elsewhere. Can RPM be
>> configured to preserve them? I could not find any options that help do
>that.
>>
>At least in the SELinux case, I don't believe what you want is possible.
>RPM
>consults the installed SELinux policy to determine what the new files
>security context on disk should be. So, a file's security context will
>always be what the end system's policy says it should be, not the context
>of
>the file on the packager's system.
>
>Hope that helps,
>Chad Sellers

Hi Chad,

I have seen that RPM consults local policy post install which results in all files getting labeled, but again, this is just SELinux specific and labels/EAs are not propagated as a part of package itself. Guess there is no way of preserving existing labels/attributes then. I know there had been some talk in the past about supporting this stuff in RPM or CPIO. Do you know if it is in the works? It is relatively easy to make this change, specially since ACL information is already preserved and packaged.

Thanks!
Jayant

>
>_______________________________________________
>Rpm-list mailing list
>Rpm-list at lists.rpm.org
>http://lists.rpm.org/mailman/listinfo/rpm-list